V Valparaíso Region Intendent: “Merval Service Must Be Extended to Quillota”

An important meeting took place last week when the Intendent of the V Valparaíso Region, Ricardo Bravo, met up with Merval’s CEO Marisa Kausel. Intendent Bravo promptly demanded the Valparaíso Underground to be extended to the town of Quillota.

“We are speaking of a publicly owned corporation that owes to serve its public”, said Bravo when referring to his demand of extending as soon as possible the service to Quillota (from Limache). It takes two hours if you travel by bus from Quillota to Limache. By extending the service, travel time would instead be reduced to 40-45 minutes.

Kausel replied that obeying to this requirement, a study would be tendered and that it would be quickened. Apart from that, it was announced that next year eight new trains will be arriving that will join the fleet of 27. This means that trains will pass every three minutes, instead of six as it is today. 70,000 people use the service today, with the new trains this number will rise to 110,00.

Footnote:Metro de Valparaíso (Merval) is the V Valparaíso Region’s own S-Bahn-like Underground. Its length is 43 km,
it comprises 20 stations and it runs through the cities and towns of Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Quilpué, Villa Alemana and Limache.